


Made Sick With Love

by Delphi



Category: Sarai-ya Goyou | House of Five Leaves
Genre: Drama, Food, Inflation, M/M, Unrequited Love
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-10-24
Updated: 2013-10-24
Packaged: 2017-12-30 09:37:53
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 500
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1017045
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Delphi/pseuds/Delphi
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Ume cooks, and Matsu eats.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Made Sick With Love

**Author's Note:**

> Written for the 2013 round of Kink Bingo on DW. Kink: Body Inflation.

Matsu loves with his stomach, which has known the warmth of his mother's soup on a cold day, and the thrill of being tossed into the air by his father, and the exhilaration of falling into passion at the first whiff of a girl's perfume. He has eaten from an empty bowl, loving Yaichi, and relished the noble sacrifice of lean looks and hollow bones. 

This reluctant affection he has for Ume is something else. It steals up on him in cups of sake and tea, but it sits in the same place and soon fills him until he is bursting. He lingers in the tavern some days, without the pretence of business, and Ume feeds him because that is what Ume does.

"You'll make yourself sick," Otake chides as he grazes over a garden of pickles: cucumber, carrot, eggplant, and shallots.

He has already overindulged. His stomach is drum-taut and heavy. His tongue is burnt with brine, and there is a pressure at the back of his throat, rising every time he swallows. His plate has already been visited by fried tofu, salty boiled daikon, and slices of persimmon. 

Ume comes out of the kitchen, his face bright with steam and sweat. He refills Matsu's plate and tenderly takes Otake's empty bottle. This latest offering is a neat triangle of rice, at the centre of which is a salt plum. Matsu makes a show of offering it to Otake, but she waves her hand gracefully.

For a moment, he imagines actually being sick: the humiliating spectacle of it, and the equally embarrassing fantasy of Ume's hand on his brow. 

He bites straight through the centre of the plum. It is delicious, of course.

"And you never put on an ounce," Otake sighs.

His hand slips to his belly, which despite her words feels swollen and strange. It is as though a large stone lies inside him. The rest of the plum rolls slowly around his mouth, coming apart under the press of his tongue and turning his mouth to vinegar. He swallows it with effort.

From the corner of his eye, he watches Ume through the doorway to the kitchen. The tavern will close soon enough, and he knows he should not stay. Yet his stomach weighs him down, full and spoilt, and he suspects that if he does not rise, Ume might just leave him to mind the shop while he walks Otake home. Then: two cups of sake upon his return, as the lanterns burn low. Or maybe it will be brown rice tea, with Ume scowling at the popping grains that dare to interrupt Okinu's sleep upstairs.

"Are you all right?" Otake asks.

"I'm fine," he says flatly and immediately tightens his lips against a wave of what might be nausea or what might only be longing. 

Yet the feeling passes, as it always does. He draws a deep breath and then plucks the last morsels of rice from the plate, leaving it bare once more.


End file.
